The present invention relates to a device for transporting slide film mounts in a slide film projector, and, more particularly, to a device for transporting slide film mounts in a slide film projector which permits the mount to be transported successively by means of driving belts from one of a pair of magazines in the projector to the other magazine after they have been subjected to image projection thereof and vice versa.
A slide film projector was well known in which the slide film mounts housed in a magazine are automatically brought out of the magazine successively and, after the projection thereof has been completed, they are automatically and successively received in the same magazine or another magazine. In this case, the transport of the mounts from the supply magazine to the projection gate, and the transport of the mounts into the receiving magazine are carried out by a level mechanism actuated by electromagnetic plunger means or a lever mechanism utilizing electric motor driven cam means.
In such a projector, substantial noise will be generated by the actuation of the lever mechanism, thereby deteriorating performance if it is used in combination with audio means or sound means, while the mounts might be injured by claw means utilized in feeding the mounts.
In a magazine, since each mount is usually located in the respective housing recess in the magazine, time consuming and troublesome manual operation is required in using the magazine, while the size of the magazine is rendered to be large because of the necessity of providing partitions between the respective housing recesses.
The present invention aims at avoiding the above described disadvantages of the prior art slide film projector.
Further, in the heretofore proposed magazine, only the slide film mounts of a predetermined thickness can be housed in the magazine. As is well known, however, the industrial standard on slide film mounts provides various thicknesses thereof in the range of 1.3 mm to 3.2 mm. Therefore, an operator might possess slide film mounts of various thicknesses, but they can not be housed in one and the same magazine thereby requiring a number of magazines each for the mounts of different thickness.
Further, a slide film mount might have projecting fins or deformed portions formed in the manufacture of the mount in the inner edge of the opening in the mount through which the image of the film is viewed or projected. Such fins or deformed portions might cause blocking of the feeding of one magazine or simultaneous feeding of two mounts when one mount is fed from one magazine or housed in the other magazine due to seizing or catching action of the fins and deformed portions of one mount to the adjacent mount relatively moved to that one mount. Such a failure might cause damages to the mount or the parts of the projector per se.
On the other hand, in a projector of the type described above, the final position of the belt at the end of each cycle of operation which should be accurately determined in order to locate the mount in alignment with the film projection gate. However, dimensional errors in manufacture and assembly of parts of backlashes between the parts engaging with each other necessarily occur thereby requiring fine adjustments of the parts in order to achieve the above described accurate alignment. Moreover, since the mounts can be transported from one magazine to the other magazine or vice versa, it is not enough to merely effect the above fine adjustments for one direction of movement of the belts, but it is necessary to further effect fine adjustments for the opposite direction of movement of the belts after the fine adjustments for the one direction of movement of the belts have been effected.
The present invention further aims at avoiding the above described difficulties in the prior art slide film projector.